We Rely On Your Support: This site is primarily supported by advertisements. Ads are what have allowed this site to be maintained for the past 15 years. We do our best to ensure only clean, relevant ads are shown, when any nasty ads are detected, we work to remove them ASAP. If you would like to view the site without ads while still supporting our work, please consider our ad-free Phoronix Premium. You can also consider a tip via PayPal.The Most Comprehensive AMD Radeon Linux Graphics Comparison

Last month I alluded to a
40-way graphics card comparison being worked on at Phoronix. This comparison
is to extensively compare the performance of the open and closed-source drivers
for each graphics card and to comprehensively comment on other areas of the Linux
graphics driver support. Not only is the OpenGL performance being evaluated, but
the thermal performance, CPU utilization, and power consumption is being looked
at too. Being published today to mark the beginning of the
Oktoberfest 2011 articles are the ATI/AMD Radeon results. This includes 28
of the 40 graphics cards, with GPUs as old as the Radeon X800XL and as new as
the AMD Radeon HD 6950.

There are over two dozen graphics cards being tested in this article.
This is just the number of discrete graphics cards that were sitting around my
labs when beginning the test process, with each one being a unique model. The
comparison is also limited to consumer graphics cards and not the selection of
FireGL/FirePro graphics processors, but that could come in another article. There
are multiple graphics cards representing each generation of ATI/AMD Radeon GPUs
spanning seven years (the oldest, a Radeon X800XL, was released in late 2004).

The equivalent NVIDIA article is in the publishing queue for next
week. The timing of this article is in part to celebrate AMD's
open-source strategy turning four years old and their continued efforts to
the Linux desktop. I had exclusive rights on the open-source strategy to announce
to the world back on 6 September 2007 while the
RadeonHD Linux driver was released on 17 September 2007.

Grab a coffee or beer and get ready for this comprehensive look
at the ATI/AMD Radeon Linux graphics support and performance. As a note before
proceeding, anyone who wishes to view these results ad-free (Please no AdBlock
or similar; Phoronix.com is run single-handedly and funded entirely by advertisements
and Phoronix Premium. This article alone required more than 310 hours to complete
at great expense.) and view the entire article on a single page, can do so by
subscribing to
Phoronix Premium. There's also the known trick of buying me a Maß of
Augustiner at Oktoberfest or any other meet-up, where some have even earned a
life-time Phoronix Premium membership.

The mission at Phoronix since 2004 has centered around enriching the Linux hardware experience. In addition to supporting our site through advertisements, you can help by subscribing to Phoronix Premium. You can also use our NewEgg.com shopping links when making online purchases or contribute to Phoronix through a PayPal tip.